Virgin Racing to run Audi E-tron FE05 cars for Season 5

After finishing third place in last season’s teams championship, long-standing entrant in the ABB FIA Formula E Championship, Virgin Racing have announced today that it will run Audi’s brand-new e-tron FE05 cars for their 2018-19 ABB FIA Formula E Championship campaign.

Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler, who took the teams’ championship last season, have developed their Gen-2 challenger, the e-tron FE05, which Virgin Racing have opted to run for its season 5 campaign.

Head of Audi Motorsport, Dieter Gass said: “We are glad that in the new Formula E season together with Virgin Racing four Audi e-tron FE05 cars will fight for points and trophies.”

“Virgin Racing’s choice of using our powertrain…confirms the excellent work that our engineers are doing together with their colleagues from our development partner Schaeffler,” he added.

Having previously developed a powertrain for themselves before collaborating with DS Automobiles for the past two seasons,Virgin Racing will now become an independent team for the 2018-19 ABB FIA Formula E Championship season. And after Techeetah won the drivers championship and came so close to success in the teams championship after being an independent team with Renault e.dams last season, Virgin Racing will be hoping that an independent team can rule the roost in Formula E for a second successive season.

“From the outset, it was always the team’s intention to partner with an OEM as Virgin’s core business areas don’t involve the production of automobiles,” said Sylvain Filippi, Virgin Racing’s Managing Director.

“With Audi Sport together with the drive of our majority team owner Envision, we feel this is the perfect partnership to ensure we continue fighting at the front of the grid.”

The relationship between Virgin Racing and Audi Sport is believed to be a multi-year deal as the British squad hopes to work their way towards a championship title in the next two seasons.

It has also been announced that Virgin Racing and Envision Group will hold a live launch event on 5 October to unveil the team’s season 5 car livery, driver line-up and partner announcements ahead of pre-season testing at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit near Valencia between 16-18 October.